Many financial institutions offer customers physical space or “box” in which they can secure valuables such as jewelry, money, and negotiable instruments as well as important documents such as life insurance policies, deeds, wills, titles, and so forth. These physical spaces are generally referred to as safe deposit boxes because such boxes are located within a bank's main vault which provides the primary physical security for the box and its contents. Customers generally pay a fee for the use of safe deposit boxes and often make use of these secured storage spaces prevent loss of the valuable items stored in these boxes that could arise due to fire, flood, theft, unintentional misplacement, natural disasters, or other undesired situations.
Additional safeguards may also be utilized to ensure the safety and security of the contents of the safe deposit box. For example, a two-key system may be used wherein the customer, upon proof of their identity, possesses a unique key for the box that works in combination with the financial institution's master key to gain entry to the box and access to the box's contents. Of course, given modern advances in security technology, many banks are also incorporating newer technologies to enhance the physical security and further restrict unauthorized access to safe deposit boxes. For example, many banks may use physical biometric authentication technologies to measure and analyze human physical characteristics in order to further validate the identity of the customer for authentication purposes. Fingerprints, retina scans, facial feature recognition, and so forth can also be used to confirm identity of the box owner and thereby restrict entry to unauthorized personnel based on physical features and/or characteristics unique to the customer.
The ability to store information electronically has changed the way we access and use information. For example, the Internet allows users to access, share, send, receive, execute, and destroy electronic documents from remote locations. As a result, important information such as credit card numbers, traveler cheque numbering, or detailed passport information can be stored electronically and accessed in the case of emergency from any location featuring Internet access. These documents, however, must still be protected to prevent unauthorized people from gaining access to the sensitive information therein.
Consequently, in addition to the aforementioned physical solutions for protection and security of high value documents and other items, several attempts have been made to provide an electronic equivalent of the bank safety deposit box for storing and securing customer copies of documents and other sensitive or private information. Many of these attempts have focused on the archiving, retrieval, and use of electronically-stored information (data, documents, etc.) such as bank records, account statements, insurance policies, tax returns, legal agreements, and other writings that permit access by the customer via a secured connection over an open network, as well as recording and reporting the access to and activities performed with such electronically-stored information, data and documents. Other attempts have also been made to provide document sharing, delivery, and execution via electronic means to gain benefits and efficiencies not possible with traditional mail, overnight delivery, private courier, hand delivery, facsimile, or email as these existing approaches have inherent disadvantages and shortcomings (e.g., cost, labor-intensive, slow, and/or insecure).
However, past attempts at providing electronic document storage and protection have been largely unsuccessful due to the inability of these systems to balance security with ease of access, as well as failing to provide any features or conveniences that help ensure not only the security of the stored files but also the continuing validity of the information, data, and documents represented by those files.